Sunday London Times Colour Supplement Interview w/Kate Bush 9/12/93

[Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>]

Here is a restored edition of the Sunday London Times Colour Supplement 
interview, which was conducted by "Chrissy Iley".  IED quotes Kate's
responses verbatim, but he has been able to reconstruct Ms. Iley's side  
of the interview in its entirety.  The version printed in the London
Sunday Times is drastically edited and revised by both Ms. Iley and
other members of the Times's staff.  You will now be able to
experience the interview as it really transpired, and this should give
you, gentle reader, a better understanding of Kate's daily routine.  
     As always in IED's transcriptions, the interviewer's words are
not put in quotes; Kate's responses are; and IED's explanatory
comments are framed in brackets [].
 
     [The scene is a little preview theatre owned by EMI.  Ms. Iley, a
clumsy, large-boned woman extruding a strong smell of sour wool and
rum, is shown in to meet Kate Bush, who smiles warmly and offers her
hand, which Ms. Iley looks at suspiciously but does not take.  Kate
notices with some surprise a uniformed security guard, who has
followed the journalist into the theatre.  Ms. Iley pointedly ignores him. 
Formalities completed, Ms. Iley launches into a rambling, inarticulate
diatribe in which could be caught only the words:]  
     I should begin by telling you I didn't like it when that nasty EMI
guard searched my purse out in the hall. I don't appreciate that kind
of treatment, I don't!
     [The guard points out that he had found several copies of Kate's
unreleased album missing from the stack in the hall, and that he would 
appreciate it if the lady would allow him to search her bag.  Ms. Iley blusters
incoherently at this request, then with a furtive, evil look around
her, changes the subject, while the guard continues to watch her:]
     Somebody tol' me you were, like, a "shy megalomaniac."  Zat true?
     [Kate laughs, replies good-naturedly:] "Oh, yes! Yes, I like that 
description."
     [Smugly, with a nasty leer]:  Personally I've always thought shy
was just another name for awkward, and megalomaniac just meant spoilt!
     [Shocked by this unexpected and gratuitous rudeness from a total
stranger, Kate smiles politely, says nothing.]     
     Someone tol' me you'd actually got (hic!) conceited enough to
make a film ["The Line, The Cross, The Curve"]!  Tell me it's not
true, Katey, eh?  Remember what a self-absorbed, worthless piece of
garbage "Magical Mystery Tour" was, will you? Heh, heh, heh!
     "Well, it is something like Magical Mystery Tour, but it's not
like that at all.  It's not finished yet, and I hate talking about
anything until it's there.  It's like talking to you about the album
if you haven't heard the tracks.  Completely ridiculous."  [Because
Ms. Iley had failed to show up for the scheduled listening session to
which she, with various other journalists, had been invited, Kate had
gone to the trouble of having five of the songs played again for Ms.
Iley at her later convenience, and had patiently rescheduled this
interview twice to meet Ms. Iley's repeated, unexplained
postponements. Kate is now under the misapprehension that Ms. Iley had
at last heard the five tracks.  In fact, however, Ms. Iley had passed
out in an alcoholic fog shortly into the opening song, and
consequently now has no memory of hearing any of the new music, which 
explains her next question:]
     So, Kate, what was going on in your pretty little head when you were 
writing "Minutes to Treasure"? 
     "'Moments of Pleasure'? 
     Whatever.  Some kind of lovesong, or what?  Silly title, though,
ain't it? [Here Ms. Iley belches resonantly.]
     "Er, it's just a very personal song.  It's to show just how
precious life is and all those little moments that people give you.
And that's how people stay alive, through your memories of them."
     All right, all right, all right, let's just get on with it, shall
we?  [Ms. Iley checks a standard interviewer's question-list, which her 
paper had given her several years earlier.  She depends on this list for
inspired questions like the following, which she reads in a slow, 
uncomprehending voice]:  What have the last three years been like for you?
     [A staff-member at EMI, who has been sitting nearby, draws Ms.
Iley aside for a moment, and asks:]
     "Don't you know that Kate's mother died earlier this year?  And
don't you know that 'Moments of Pleasure' was partly prompted by the loss
of her mother, as well as the deaths of several intimate and longtime 
friends of hers during the past three years?  We gave you all this
background information earlier!"
     [Ms. Iley mutters something about having lost the copy of her 
background-briefing on the Tube to work that morning...Meanwhile Kate is
replying politely:]
     "Well, it hasn't been a very good time at all, really.  My mother died.
Sometimes things have been so bad that I couldn't even work.
Singing is such a deeply personal thing to do, I couldn't manage it."
     [Ms. Iley, beginning to catch on, says:]
     Aw, poor Miss Hoity-toity had a bad time!  I bet your boy-friend
left you, too! Eh? Cat gotcher tongue?  I'll take that silence as a 'yes'!
So lemme ask you this, then, Miss High-and-Mighty Rock Star -- what
happened to your mother, then, eh?  Run off with the cook?
     [Kate, stunned, still manages a polite smile, and replies:]
     "She got ill and she died."
     [Ms. Iley pores drunkenly over the lyric-sheet for several long
minutes, then, as though she has come up with a truly brilliant and
original question, asks:]
     So I bet your mum was full of sayings like 'Every old sock meets
an old shoe', right?
     "Isn't that a beautiful little saying?"
     I dunno, wudduzit mean? Izzat the same as 'We seek the teeth that 
made the wounds'?  Cuz I know that one. I've heard that one. Yeah.
     [Kate, by this time suspicious that Ms. Iley is not just drunk
and unprepared, but insane, as well, decides that perhaps the best
thing to do is to humor her]:
     "Oh, that's so cute, isn't it? So cute."
     [But Ms. Iley is already off to the next question on the list]
     So what does your father do for a living?  How much does he
make, anyway?
     "My father is a doctor."
     So what kind of a doctor is he, your father?
     "That's a personal question."
      Had many malpractice cases to settle, lately, has he? Heh, heh, heh!
     "That's not really about my work."
     [Peering at some notes her colleagues had prepared for her
earlier, Ms. Iley reads that Dr. Bush had once spoken a few lines on
"The Fog", and retorts triumphantly:]
     "Well, he features in your work!"
     "It's not something that I really want to talk about."
     "I bet you're covering for him, eh?  I bet you're always crying
to get what you want -- you've got an awfully tiny body, I bet you
behave jus' like 'daddy's little girl', am I right or am I right?
     [Kate does not respond, but still manages to smile politely.]
     What about "Running Up That Hill", that whole gender-switching
thing, eh? What's the line on that, eh? You a pervert, or something?
     "Well, in the song, I wanted to be a man in a woman's body.  I
thought it would be completely astounding, so that we could completely
understand each other.  Because in essence we are so different."
     I hear you've got some pretty daft notions about men and women
having different energies, 'n' that.  Dead silly, if you ask me!
     "Well, I do believe there is a feminine energy and there is a
masculine energy.  Some women have very masculine energies, and the
creativity of a lot of women is maculine-driven because they are
ambitious to speed forward.  It's just a way of characterizing
different motivations for living and behaving." [Ms. Iley chuckles to
herself in anticipation of the clever editing she will do later on to
make Kate's words seem less reasonable...]
     I bet you love money, though, eh? Heh, heh, heh! Betcha you've got
pots and pots! [Drool begins to drip from Ms. Iley's mouth.]
     "I'm not really ambitious -- not for money, not for material
things.  But I suppose I am driven by some creative force to keep
working.  It is these 'feminine' energies, which are very special,
that have been a little neglected."
     Yeah, I remember your erect nipples poking through your nice
tight leotard, back in the good old days, eh?  That was a nice bit o' fun!
That was feminine, alright! [More drool.]
     [Kate, by now ignoring Ms. Iley's gross attempts at innuendo,
decides her best hope is to continue her own point, and wait to see if
any of it is able to come through in the finished interview:]
     "I can understand why in many situations women have found the
need to become masculine.  A lot of my friends feel the feminist
movement set women back a long way.  Man-hating is wrong, but many
women are ashamed that they can't just be a woman.  I think ideally
people can be quite androgynous.  That can be exciting."
     Oh, exciting, eh?  Heh, heh! Right, I gotcha! Like all them
bananas and such in this 'Eat the Music' song, eh? It says 'ere, er...
wait a minute...Here! 'All is revealed/Not only women bleed.' I get
it! That's dirty, that is! Heh! Heh! [Thick ropes of slobbery goo
stream from Ms. Iley's maw as she conjures up unprintable images...]
     "That's not simply a sexual description, actually.  It's about
how beautiful men can be on the inside.  I think proper opposites are
very exciting.  How could you possibly experience pain until you knew
what laughter was?"
     [At this point Kate goes into considerable detail about her
ideas, including some fascinating points about the song 'And So Is
Love', which she reveals has an underlying positive message, but Ms.
Iley, who has succumbed to her drunkenness, slides under her chair and
begins to snore.  Later she will write about this forty-minute gap in
the discussion: "Kate then goes into a discourse about why the song
'Life is Sad' is incredibly positive, and I'm afraid she lost me.  I
cannot tell whether she is being obtuse on purpose but suspect that
she is trying to avoid the questions about men which she senses are
coming. There have been so many wincingly intimate songs about
relationships, I wonder who has been her muse."  What Ms. Iley
actually said, upon being revived by Kate and the guard, was:]
     I'm alright, lemmego! 'ere, I've got another question for you,
Miss Kate-your-royal-Prigginess!  All your songs to date have been
nothing but a bunch of wet, sentimental lovesongs, 'aven't they? So
what's it all about, then, eh? Bet you've done it wivvabunch of 'em,
am I right? You dirty whore!  Tell me, then, what are the names of
your boyfriends, and what are their phone numbers?
     "That's for me to know and you to find out.  I don't really see
what that question has to do with my work."
     Hey! You're the one that said your life is your work.  Come on,
then, spill the beans!
     "I think that's personal, and I'm here to talk about my work.  My
private life I don't want to let go of.  I need to keep it close and
tender so that it is still my own." [Even Ms. Iley will later report that
Kate, though unfailingly polite, is "smiling an assassin's smile;" but
evidently it never dawns on her why.]
     Well, your songs are all autobiographical, so why shouldn't I
ask? How can anyone tell where the boundaries are?
     "Well, I'm telling you." [Ms. Iley later writes: "She is
unsettlingly polite.  If she had been angry with me there would have
been at least a confrontation." Apparently this is intended as a criticism.]
     I betcha you got it on with Prince, eh? Heh! Heh!
     "Actually, we never actually talked to each other; we simply
exchanged tapes."
     Oh.  Well, I bet they were dirty tapes, then, eh? How much did
you have to pay him, huh?  Heh! Heh!
     [Kate changes the subject:]
     "I think creative control is incredibly important.  If you don't
have that control your work will be interfered with until it's gone
out of your hands.  I was always aware that things wouldn't be how I
wanted them unless I was willing to fight.  You have to fight for
everything you want.  Struggle is important.  It's how you grow and
how you change."
     [Ms. Iley has fallen into another boozy doze, and Kate's words
here make it into print only through an error by the tape transcriber
at the Sunday Times:]
     "I've always been tenacious when it comes to my work, and I
became quickly aware of the outside pressures of being famous
affecting my work.  It seemed ironic that I was expected to do
interviews and television, which took me away from the thing that had 
put me into that situation.  It was no longer relevant that I wrote
songs.  I could see my work becoming something that had no thought in
it, of me becoming a personality, which is never what I wanted.  All
I wanted was the creative process."
     [Ms. Iley jerks awake here, and shouts:]
     You're getting old, Kate! You must be in your mid-thirties by
now. So tell us, luvvie, when are you going to 'ave kids?  Better
hurry it up, you know, you're old!
     [Kate does not reply, but smiles politely.]
     Oh, I get it!  [Ms. Iley sneers:] Your albums are your children! 
     "No.  Can you imagine a child which took three-and-a-half years
to come out?"
     Yeah, well, I've got a friend who printed an interview with
you where you yourself said "I'm tough as nails." Hah! Gotcha there!
     "Ah, yes. [Kate squints, the brows knitting together under the
short fringe.] The journalist -- your friend, you say? -- made that
up.  I'm strong, but I'm not 'as tough as nails.'  The two are very 
different.  Quite often people project their life onto you.  Also
in the same piece [four years ago] she said I said I was as
fragile as a butterfly!  People impose their own personalities on me.
I'm surprised you don't know that. [This pointedly ironic remark
actually gets through to Ms. Iley, who later reports: "She is so full
of contempt that communication is almost impossible.  Is it just me
that she doesn't like to reveal things to?]
     "It's quite dangerous to go through life extremely open.  In a
way you need an element of trust, of course; for some people it's just
very hard.  Fear is such an enormous thing in all of us, and I think
it stops a lot of rather nice processes."
     Come on, Kate, give me something juicy about your family.  A
childhood recollection.  You know, like maybe you caught your father
doing the jig-o'-life with your brother or something, eh? Heh! heh! [Ms.
Iley here emits a foul stench from the depths of her throat, coughs
messily and lapses back into a sullen silence.]
     "As a child, I was always impressed by the sea. I think it's
completely stunning.  I'd love to be part of the sea.  Wonderful."
     I can't even swim! Makes me feel like I'm drowning. Hate the sea!
Bollocks the sea! Tell me about your private life, dammit!
     "It's been a difficult three years for everybody.  The recession
has affected everybody so badly..."
     [Kate stands up to show Ms. Iley out. Ms. Iley will later write,
in conclusion:  "Kate's emotional range is intense, stunted, trapped.
Although she insists she is more happy than sad, I have not found her
sense of humour to justify this.  I have not found her." 
     In the corridor the security guard insists on looking in Ms. Iley's 
bag; he discovers fifteen pilfered copies of "The Red Shoes" CD ("I wanted
something to remember my visit by, thassall!")  For the Times she will
write: "A dilemma:  she doesn't really want to talk about anything but
her music and I am not allowed to have the album to listen to..."]
     
-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
   P.S.:  IED's editor informs him that he has misidentified a Ms.
Ivy, who works for the Sunday Times of New London, Connecticut, as
'Ms. Iley,' of the Sunday London Times.  Should there be any legal
inquiries, he hopes this explanation of an unfortunate editorial 
oversight is sufficient.  He sincerely regrets any harm that this  
error might have caused...